Last night George Carlin passed away, he departed this earth, he expired like a magazine subscription. As he was in a hospital, he had a Terminal Episode. He was 71 years young. Actually, Carlin hated euphemistic language. George Carlin DIED yesterday. He was 71 years OLD.

I’ve been a Carlin fan since my youth. His irreverent humor especially about his Catholic upbringing (Catholic which I was until I reached the age of reason)drew me to listen to his albums. But it was his ability to look at society and point out things that most people found it uncomfortable to talk about, never mind JOKE about that made him one of my heroes.

Look–not everyone found him funny–many found him offensive. His rants, however, inspired many to follow in his footsteps. Remember, without George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Red Foxx et al, the genius that was Lenny Bruce may have become a footnote in American History. Bruce was the first mainstream comedian to push the First Amendment to the forefront in the wake of McCarthyism and the “Leave It To Beaver” 1950′s.

Carlin is the reason there was(or technically still is) a “standards” for what language can not be used in prime time on TV. He is also the reason many rock and roll songs are now censored on Radio. Steve Miller’s Jet Airliner and Charlie Daniels Band’s The Devil Went Down to Georgia come to mind.

There are too many bits/routines to name and I will not link to them. Simply go to You Tube or Google Video and search until midnight.

In this day and age we have become overly sensitive to other people’s opinions. When someone says something that is not Politically Correct in our or society’s opinion we tend to over react. We call for firings or censorship. When a radio talk show host opines on a topic and speaks insensitively instead of changing the station we listen more intently, looking for more ammunition. Now I am not talking about name calling racist bigotry. There is no place for that in decent society. But if I question the performance of city schools vs suburban schools I run the risk of being called a racist. George Carlin would point out these things and find humor in things that might make us uncomfortable. BUT he would make us THINK!

His brand of humor and social commentary reminded us that FREE SPEECH is not just for the PC crowd. It is for EVERYONE, NO EXCEPTIONS. So when you ask me do I find George Carlin funny, the answer is ABSOLUTELY YES. But when you ask me, Why is he one of my heroes? The answer is because he raised the awareness that there are those in our society who want to control what can be said, what we can hear and what we can think.

He may be one of the most visible defenders of that pesky little thing we call THE FIRST AMENDMENT.I am bandanaman61@gmail.com

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Gary Gocek grew up in Liverpool (central NY) and attended RIT (BS in CS). He has lived in or around Fairport for over 20 years. Gary now lives west of the village of Fairport with his wife, two cats and two guitars. He has two young-adult sons who graduated from FHS.

Gary works as a software developer and enjoys his family, music, ethnic heritage activities, church activities and DVDs-by-mail. He maintains family and other websites. After 9/11, he became a news junkie, gathering news from the D&C, TV, radio and the Internet. Gary says blogging is a natural extension, and for the D&C he hopes to "mix typical diary-like blog entries with humorous posts and comments on local politics."